Oxford Dictionaries Spelling challenge

Oxford Dictionaries Spelling challenge is a feature of Oxford Dictionaries which combines our grasp of spelling with our vocabulary and listening skills.

Oxford Dictionaries Spelling challenge  presents students in the intermediate-to-advanced bracket with three levels of difficulty, ranging from tricky to fiendish.

The student will hear 15 words that they will have to write in the given box in either American or British English, depending on the student's choice before playing. The student can listen to a word as often as necessary by clicking on the 'listen again' tag.

Instant feedback on the spelling of an individual word is given through a system of ticks and crosses. At the end of the challenge, students can check the correct spelling and meaning of the fifteen words used in the challenge.

Listen and Write

Listen and Write is a site where English students, specially those at an intermediate level, can listen to audio clips and type what they hear. Consequently, Listen and Write allows students to create their own transcriptions or do their own dictations.

The audio files are always about current events.

Although it is not absolutely necessary to create an account to gain access to the site, it is more than advisable, as lots of activities are just restricted to members, who can save audios, share audios with friends, and collaborate with other members for writing the transcript. Joining is free.

Listen and Write won’t let you proceed unless you get the transcription right. In order to help you, the audio files are fragmented in short chunks of about 10 seconds. If the auto-play box is ticked, the segment keeps repeating automatically. Besides, if you click on hint, you are give some help to complete a word. Once you have completed a segment, the file automatically moves to the next one.

There are three different types of activities you can do with Listen and Write:
Full mode: You write a full transcription.
Quick mode: You just type the first letter of a word.
Blank mode: A transcript with blanks for you to complete is provided.

Listen and Write offers a number of levels of difficulty ranging from 0 to 22, but I have been unable to figure out what a specific level means. Strong Básico 2 students can give the site a try starting at level 0.

If you want to see how the site works, Russel Stannard has created this video.

Dictation time with Beyoncé

Beyoncé helped promoting The World Humanitarian Day 2012 celebrated on 19th August this year. I thought this might be a good opportunity for us to find out about this charity while intermediate students putting their listening skills to the test.

Self-study activity:
Watch the 50-second clip and try to transcribe everything Beyonce says (and sings).



You can read the transcript of the ad below.

If you feel dictations are a good practice for developing your language skills, you can try dictationsonline.com, where you will find short dictations for English students of all levels.

And you can also try, especially at Básico 2 and Intermediate 1 levels, Listen A Minute, one of the eight web sites by Sean Banville.

On August 19th 2012, it’s high time we rise together.
Do one thing for another human being.
Nothing is too small,
It begins with each of us.
Make your mark, and say I was here.
Go to whd-iwashere.org and together we’ll make our stories known.
I was here.
I live.
I love.
One day, one message.
One billion people taking action for each other.
I’ll see you then.

Four stories

About one year ago we published a post with the title Online TPR exercises, from Henny Jellema, which was more than suitable to practise commands (the imperative) in English through listening and reading for lower level students (Básico 1 and Básico 2).

Henny Jellema is also the mastermind behind Four Stories, where  lower level students (Básico 1 and Básico 2) are given the chance to continue practising listening and reading in situational contexts.

In Four Stories students have to listen and identify a number of sentences which belong in one of the stories.

H/T to Larry Ferlazzo.

Dictations online

Dictations online is a section of Fonekis.org. Here students of all levels will find a number of dictations to practise their listening comprehension skills as well as their spelling and their grasp of grammar and vocabulary.

Just follow the instructions you will find in each activity of Dictations online .

H/T to Michelle Henry.

Presents -A dictation

Self-study activity: Get together with an English-speaking friend and discuss these questions:

When did you last get a present? What did you get?
When did you last give a present?
How do you decide what presents to give?

Watch this ad from Ewan Macgregor. He gives us some ideas about what presents to buy.



Now try to transcribe everything Ewan is telling us. Transcribing is an activity that can help us improve our listening ability when learning English.

Check the "dictation" here.